Closing Cryptocurrency Accounts Can’t Stop Sunday Igboho’s Funding — Lawyer

Legal practitioner, Tommy Ojoge-Daniel, has said the recent warning issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria to financial institutions and others against doing businesses in crypto and other digital assets, cannot stop the fundraiser set up for Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo (Igboho).

Ojoge-Daniel, disclosed this in an interview with the PUNCH on Friday shortly after the CBN issued its directive.

Supporters of Igboho had set up a Gofundme page for the purpose of raising £100,000 (N51.8 million) for him to buy buses.

The fundraiser, which was initiated by Maureen Badejo, a blogger and activist based in the United Kingdom, had garnered £26, 452 (N13.8 million) as of the time of filing this report. 

It was gathered that crypto currency was one of the major ways through which funds sourced through crowd funding are accessed.

On Friday, the CBN directed banks in the country to close all cryptocurrency-related accounts.

In a statement on Friday, the regulator prohibited all financial institutions from facilitating cryptocurrency payments in the country.

This directive was contained in a letter addressed to all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFIs)and other financial institutions (OFIs).

Ojoge-Daniel said, “It (CBN policy) does not affect it (Igboho’s funding) in any way in as much as crypto currency is an open source platform for peer to peer (P2P) exchange of value and it is largely untraceable.

“The open ledger (block chain) only tracks activities in wallets and cannot hinder or hamper individuals who have crypto in their wallets from sending it to the recipient wallet. They can only track the payments but can never track the payers. The only issue will be exchanging the crypto on a direct platform to a Nigerian account.”